what is new

Here is a blog that I wrote last week. I finally am able to post it so here it is belated...

11/20/2008
8:45pm

Well... what is new? Why is Sonja not blogging? Does anyone out there miss my blog? I miss blogging. At this point we do not have internet at home because we haven't found space for it in our budget that hasn't been looked at since FPU (sorry Dave Ramsey! - oops! we're working on that but that is another story) so Glenn checks his email at work and occasionally glances at mine and I check mine once or twice a week before or after small group (all of the homes we've met at so far have wireless) or at the library. The budget thing is true but it is not the real reason that we don't have internet. Getting rid of the internet for a season is something I really needed to do. Sure, we could have called up Time Warner as soon as we moved in but I knew that would not have been good for me. I am struggling with so much stuff right now both emotionally and school-wise and box-wise that I knew it would be easier for me to hide on the computer rather than deal with real life that really needs to be dealt with. I had way too much of an internet addiction (can anyone say facebook??) and it really needed to be broken. This fall I have been doing Beth Moore's study on Daniel at church and I have been amazed as I look at my pretty unmaterialistic in my opinion mindset how much I am influenced with our “Babylonian” society's mindset. It is everywhere – you can do it all, be it all, have it all... you deserve it, you need it. “I am and there is none besides me.” How God has had to break me and make me step back and realize that it is NOT all about me. We do not have to buy into this world's mindset but “godliness is never accidental.” So I am trying. Someday we will have internet at home again and my treatment of it will be different. I am reminded of that song “He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be, it took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and jupiter and mars, how loving and patient He must be cause, He's still working on me.” And I am so glad He is.

Well, enough of that. What is new? Maybe I can come up with a list of 10 things. We'll see how far I get:
1.Our new small group. We loved our small group from last year but we were getting so big that it was time to multiply. We split off with the Lishawas to start a group down in the south part of the city on Monday nights. There are 6 couples that regularly meet together when our doctors and nurses are not at the hospital. We have decided to take a sermon discussion approach since it worked so well during the relationship series during the first 6 weeks and it has been great to grow and pray together and hold each other accountable. I am so excited about the work that God is doing in all of our lives and the victories that we have made. I could go on but I am going to try to keep this short.
2.Fighting Fair. Our pastor did an amazing series on Fighting Fair at church this fall. If you are in a conflict with anyone right now or ever have been or ever will be (did I get everyone?) this is an amazing series for you to listen to. Go to www.northbaptistchurch.org and look under sermon archives or something like that and look for messages from September 7-October 19. Download all of them and listen to them!! It totally changed my life and perspective on conflict. There were messages about asking for forgiveness (a lot different than just saying 'I'm sorry'), confrontation, the cost of forgiveness, church discipline, overcoming evil with good. To sum it up quickly:
1.Sinful people respond sinfully when they are sinned against.
2.Your goal in conflict cannot be to win the conflict or to avoid the conflict, your goal must be to please God.
3.God's goal in conflict is to make us more like Him.
4.My biggest enemy in conflict is ME!
3.We have resumed school. Our “one week off for fall break/moving” turned into almost 3 weeks. It was bad. I was so overwhelmed with trying to find places for stuff and not finding places for stuff and sitting amidst boxes and pulling my hair out trying to figure out how and where to do school in this house but it has gotten better. Glenn helped me to come up with a schedule for our day and encouraged me to stick with it and it has gone much better. Some grumbling to start but we are enjoying it again so that is good.
4.Our CLA (Couch Like Apparatus). Space and storage is of the essence when you are living in a house of less than 600 sq feet with 5 other people. Glenn wanted to make a couch for us that the seat lifted off and we could store our camping stuff or off season clothes in it but hadn't made progress on it and we were all longing for something else to sit on besides our one recliner. Yes, all 4 kids can sit on my lap on it while we are reading a story but it would be nice to spread out a little so we started looking for a couch on craigslist. I thought we would just find a love seat or something else that would work for the time being but we found our CLA. It was homemade by the people we bought it from with really heavy pieces of wood but it has storage under it and we have been able to put some stuff that we wanted to keep but didn't want out or didn't need this winter under there. It is huge. When sitting on it my feet do not touch the floor. I am thankful for it though it was not exactly what we had in mind for a couch.
5.We have sold some stuff on Craigslist (we are not just buying this time). We sold out roll top desk (which we had no room for), our sleigh bed (which, if you remember, we could not get the boxsprings up the stairs for), and Caleb's old white bmx bike. It seems like there was something else but I can't remember what it was. There are a few more things that need to be posted and, I think, one thing still out there but that is a praise!
6.Glenn and I have both gone out this week with other people without any family member. On Tuesday I went out with a couple of ladies from small group to Phillip's European for dessert because I had been stuck in the house all day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with sick kids so couldn't go to church or small group or the library. It was fun getting to know them better and sharing our lives (until 11:20 – yikes!). Tonight Glenn is at the Distillery with some people from work because it is the last day of three different employees from his unit. With Glenn at small group on Monday and me at AWANA last night and the opposite person staying home with sick kids we haven't really seen each other much. I think that we need to go on a date. We haven't been on one in several months. Somehow I really need to start making my relationship with Glenn a priority again!
7.Speaking of Glenn.... he has been offered an interview at Upstate on 1/12/09. Yeah! His first one. I am praying for more, specifically for U of R but God knows what is best.